The boy, age seven
Stayed behind the others -
Remained outside in waist deep snow
While his newly assigned family
plodded and stomped onto the back porch of the great house,
shaking snow and cracked ice from their matted sweaters,
Shedding their scarves, wet gloves and socks .  
Loud excited voices growing muffled and faint
until they disappeared completely into the warmth and comfort of interior rooms.

It was the boy's first winter in western New York
and he had never known such monumental silence
or seen the world disappear so completely
in snowstorm and dusk.
His cheeks burned red;
His toes and fingers grew fat and numb –
How long would it take, he wondered, for fresh snow and wind
to obliterate his footsteps completely,
leaving no evidence of the path
that had brought him there;
Until it looked as if he had just been dropped into someone's yard;
as if he had just appeared from nowhere.

Before he began to move again –
before he headed inside with the others
he smiled.
In the space between his thoughts
there was a moment of silence deeper than anything he had ever felt before.